coffee filter hydrangea s

These coffee filter Hydrangea flowers  are fairly easy to make and they make quite an impact when arranged in bunches of five or seven and placed in rustic style containers.

 I only had enough coffee filters to make three and I don't have any rustic containers. So they are not displayed at their best here.

To make these flowers you need eight basket style coffee filters for each flower head.

Diluted inks or food colouring to stain the filters, ( blue, lilac, pink yellow and green)

 A largish paintbrush, glue, wire, florist tape, hot glue gun, sharp scissors and a pencil.

I soaked the filters in water and wrung them out. 

Using the paintbrush I daubed some patches of yellow and green diluted inks on the damp filters, near the middle  and blue and lilac on the curved edges. To make the blue flower heads.

For the pink flower heads I daubed yellow and green inks to the centre and pink to the outer edges leaving some  areas  un-inked and patchy effect. It's worth remembering the filters will dry lighter.

As you can see the filters here dried a pale blue lilac, so  after cutting them I added more colour and hung them up to dry. Hanging them from the middle so that the colour drains to the edges

For the white flower heads I used diluted yellow and green inks to stain the filters. Leaving patches un-inked.

Once dry, I folded the filters in half,  four times.  (see photo above)

Draw a four petal flower  with a stem at the top curved edge and cut out the flower while the filter is still folded, as in the photo above.

You may find you need to snip a couple of the petals apart if you haven't cut through all the folds.

I decided my filters were  a little too pale so I added more diluted ink with the paint brush and hung them up to dry.

 You can dry the filters with a heat gun but it does make the filter paper quite crisp. I  prefer to dry them naturally for a softer feel.

When you open up the filter it should look like this, ( photo on right ) but maybe with a little more colour than the one photographed here.

Once dry, fold the filter paper in half twice and glue the edges together.

Using a hot glue gun, glue the wire to glued edge of the filter and roll the filter around the wire loosely forming a cone shape, fluffing out the petals as you wind. Glue the edge of the cone down with a hot glue gun to secure. 

Sorry I forgot to take a photo of this part.

You want the flower base to resemble an ice cream cone, with the petals being the ice cream spewing over the cone.

                                                         Bind the flower base with floral tape and work down the wire stem adding leaves as you wind.  

I made the leaves out of filter paper  which I had dyed green using a far more intense green ink with just a little water.  I dried them with a heat gun. Unfortunately the result was not so good. I had something that looked a lot like a cabbage leaf.  (I must remember this technique next time I want to make a cabbage)  But it's not the look I need for these flowers.

So I painted the damp filters with varying shades of dark green ink with just a few spoonfuls of water to thin the ink.  Letting them dry flat and naturally also helps. 

Then I folded each filter into four and cut out four large jagged leaf shapes with a long stalks, so that the stalk is easier to bind to the stem.